But before I relate the prophecies concerning Tyre, I shall here present the reader with a little abstract of the history of that famous city, by which he will be the better enabled to understand the prophecies. A. M. 2752. Tyre was built by the Sidonians,* 240 years beAnt J. C. 1252. fore the building of the temple of Jerusalem: for this reason it is called by Isaiah, The daughter of Sidon. It soon surpassed its mother-city in extent, power and riches. A. M. 3285. It was besieged by Shalmanezer,† and alone reAnt. J. C. 719.- sisted the united fleets of the Assyrians and Phonicians; a circumstance which greatly heightened its pride. A. M. 3432. Nabuchodonosor laid siege to Tyre, at the time Ant. J. C. 572. that Ithobalus was king of that city; but did not take it till thirteen years after. But before it was conquered, the inhabitants had retired, with most of their effects, into a neighbouring island, where they built a new city. The old one was rased to the very foundation, and has since been no more than a village, known by the name of Palæ-Tyrus, or Ancient Tyre: but the new one rose to greater power than ever. It was in this great and flourishing condition, when Alexander besieged and took it. And here begin the seventy years' obscurity and oblivion, in which it was to lie, according to Isaiah. It was indeed soon repaired, because the Sidonians, who entered the city with Alexander's army, saved 15,000 of their citizens (as was before observed,) who, after their return, applied themselves to commerce, and repaired the ruins of their country with incredible application; besides which, the women and children, who had been sent to Carthage, and lodged in a place of safety, returned to it at the same time. But Tyre was confined to the island in which it stood. Its trade extended no farther than the neighbouring cities, and it had lost the empire of the sea. And when eighteen years after Antigonus besieged it with a strong fleet, we do not find ⚫hat the Tyrians had any maritime forces to oppose him. This second siege, which reduced it a second time to captivity, plunged it again into the state of oblivion from which it endeavoured to extricate itself; and this oblivion continued the exact time foretold by Isaiah. This term of years being expired, Tyre recovered its former credit; and, at the same time, resumed its former vices; till at last, converted by the preaching of the Gospel, it became a holy and religious city. The sacred writings acquaint us with part of these revolutions, and this is what we are now to show. Tyre, before the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, was considered as one of the most ancient and flourishing cities in the world. Its industry and very advantageous situation had raised it to the Sovereignty of the seas, and made it the centre of the trade of the whole universe. From the extreme parts of Arabia, Persia, and *Joseph. Antiq. 1. viii. c. 3. Ibid. 1. ix. c. 14 xxvi. and xxvii. throughout. Ezek. xxvii. 4-25. Ibid. 1. x. c 11 Ezek. India, to the most remote western coasts; from Scythia, and the northern regions, to Egypt, Ethiopia, and the southern countries; all nations contributed to the increase of its riches, splendour, and power. Not only the several things useful and necessary to society, which those various regions produced; but whatever they had that was rare, curious, magnificent, or precious, and best adapted to the support of luxury and pride; all these were brought to its markets. And Tyre on the other side, as from a common source, dispersed this varied abundance over all kingdoms, and infected them with its corrupt manners, by inspiring them with a love for ease, vanity, luxury, and voluptuousness. * A long, uninterrupted series of prosperity had swelled the pride of Tyre. She delighted to consider herself as the queen of cities; a queen whose head is adorned with a diadem; whose correspondents are illustrious princes; whose rich traders dispute for superiority with kings: who sees every maritime power, either her allies or dependents; and who has made herself necessary or formidable to all nations. Tyre had now filled up the measure of her iniquity, by her impiety against God, and her barbarity exercised against his people. She had rejoiced over the ruins of Jerusalem, exclaiming in an insulting tone: "Behold then the gates of this so populous city are broken down. Her inhabitants shall come to me, and I will enrich myself with her spoils, now she is laid waste." She was not satisfied with having reduced the Jews to a state of captivity,‡ notwithstanding the alliance between them; with selling them to the Gentiles, and delivering them up to their most cruel enemies: she likewise had seized upon the inheritance of the Lord, and carried away from his temple the most precious things, to enrich therewith the temples of her idols. This profanation and cruelty drew down the vengeance of God upon Tyre. God is resolved to destroy her, because she relied so much upon her own strength, her wisdom, her riches, and her alliances. He therefore will bring against her Nabuchodonosor, that king of kings, to overwhelm her with his mighty hosts, as with waters that overspread their banks, to demolish her ramparts, to ruin her proud palaces, to deliver up her merchandise and treasures to the soldiers, and to rase Tyre to the very foundations, after having set fire to it, and either extirpated or dispersed all its inhabitants. By this so unexpected a fall,¶ the Almighty will teach the astonished nations, that he more evidently displays his providence by the most incredible revolutions of states; and that his will alone directs the enterprises of men, and guides them as he pleases, in order to humble the proud. * Ezek. xxvi. 17. xxvii. 3, 4. 25-33. Amos i. 9, 10. Joel iii. 2. 5. Ezek. xxvi. 3-12. 19-21. xxvii. 27. 34. † Ezek. xxvi. 2. Amos i. 9, 10. Joel iii. 2-8. || Jerem. xlvii. 2-7 Ezek. xxvi. 15-18. xxvii. 33-36 Lɛa. xxiii. 8, 9. But Tyre, after she had recovered her losses and repaired her ruins, forgot her former state of humiliation, and the guilt which had reduced her to it. She still was puffed up with the glory of possessing the empire of the sea;* of being the seat of universal commerce; of giving birth to the most famous colonies; of having within her walls merchants, whose credit, riches, and splendour, rendered them equal to the princes and great men of the earth; of being governed by a monarch, who might justly be entitled god of the sea; of tracing back her origin to the most remote antiquity; of having acquired, by a long series of ages, a kind of eternity; and of having a right to promise herself another such eternity in times to come. But since this city, corrupted by pride, by avarice and luxury, has not profited by the first lesson which God has given her by the hands of the king of Babylon; and since, after being oppressed by all the forces of the East, she has not yet learned not to confide any longer in the false and imaginary support of her own greatness: God foretells her another chastiseinent, which he will send upon her from the West, near 400 years after the first. Her destruction will come from Chittim, that is, Macedonia; from a kingdom so weak and obscure, that it had been despised a few years before; a kingdom whence she could never have expected such a blow. "Tyrc, possessed with an opinion of her own wisdom, and proud of her fleets, of her immense riches, which she heaped up as mire in the streets," and also protected by the whole power of the Persian empire, does not imagine she has any thing to fear from those new enemies, who, being situated at a great distance from her, without either money, strength, or reputation; having neither harbours nor ships, and being quite unskilled in navigation; cannot therefore, as she imagines, annoy her with their land forces. Tyre looks upon herself as impregnable, because she is defended by lofty fortifications and surrounded on all sides by the sea as with a moat and a girdle: nevertheless Alexander, by filling up the arm of the sea which separates her from the continent, will force off her girdle, and demolish those ramparts which served her as a second enclo sure. Tyre, thus dispossessed of her dignity as queen and as a free city, boasting no more her diadem nor her girdle, will be reduced, during seventy years, to the mean condition of a slave. "The Lord hath purposed it,** to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth." Her fall will drag after it the ruin of trade in general;ft and she will prove to all maritime cities a subject of sorrow and lamentation, by making them lose the present means and the future hopes of enriching themselves. Isa. xxiii. 3, 4.7, 8. 12. xili. 11, 12. **hid. xxiii. 9. † Ezek. xxviii. 2. Ibid. Isa. xxiii. 17. To prove,* in a sensible manner, to Tyre, that the prophecy concerning her ruin is not incredible, and that all the strength and wisdom of man can no ways ward off or suspend the punishment which God has prepared for the pride and the abuse of riches, Isaiah sets before her the example of Babylon, whose destruction ought to have been a lesson to her. This city, in which Nimrod laid the foundations of his empire, was the most ancient, the most populous, and embellished with more edifices, both public and pri vate, than any other city. She was the capital of the first empire that ever existed, and was founded in order to command over the whole earth, which seemed to be inhabited only by families which she had brought forth and sent out as so many colonies, whose common parent she was. Nevertheless, says the prophet, she is no more, neither Babylon nor her empire. The citizens of Babylon had multiplied their ramparts and citadels, to render even the besieging it impracticable. The inhabitants had raised pompous palaces, to make their names immortal; but all these fortifications were but as so many dens, in the eyes of Providence, for wild beasts to dwell in; and these edifices were doomed to fall to dust, or else to sink to humble cottages. Aiter so signal an example, continues the prophet, shali Tyre, which is so much inferior to Babylon in many respects, dare to hope that the menaces pronounced by Heaven against her, viz. to deprive her of the empire of the sea, and destroy her fleets, will not be fulfilled? To make her the more strongly sensible how much she has abused her prosperity, God will reduce her to a state of humiliation and oblivion during threescore and ten years. But after this season of obscurity, she will again endeavour to appear with the air of a harlot, full of charms and artifices, whose sole endeavours are to corrupt youth, and sooth their passions. To promote her commerce, she will use fraud, deceit, and the most insidious arts. She will visit every part of the world, to collect the most rare and most delicious products of every country; to inspire the various nations of the universe with a love and admiration for superfluities and splendour, and fill them with an aversion for the simplicity and frugality of their ancient manners. And she will set every engine at work, to renew her ancient treaties; to recover the confidence of her former correspondents; and to compensate, by a speedy abundance, the sterility of seventy years. Thus, in proportion as the Almighty shall give Tyre an opportunity of recovering her trade and credit, she will return to her former shameful traffic, which God had ruined, by stripping her of *fsa. xxiii. 13, 14. † Behold the land of the Chaldæans; this people was not till the Assyrians founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste. Isa. xxiii. 13, 14. Isa. xxiii. 15. Ibid. ver. 16. Ibid. xxiii. 17. the great possessions which she had applied to such pernicious uses. But at last,* Tyre, converted by the Gospel, shall no more be a scandal and a stumbling-block to nations. She shall no longer sacrifice her labour to the idolatry of wealth, but to the worship of the Lord, and the comfort of those that serve him. She shall no longer render her riches barren and useless by detaining them, but shall scatter them, like fruitful seed, from the hands of believers and ministers of the Gospel. One of God's designs, in the prophecies just now cited, is to give us a just idea of a traffic, whose only motive is avarice, and whose fruits are pleasures, vanity, and the corruption of morals. Mankind look upon cities enriched by a commerce like that of Tyre (and it is the same with private persons,) as happier than any other; as worthy of envy, and as fit (from their industry, labour, and the success of their application and conduct) to be proposed as patterns for the rest to copy after; but God, on the contrary, exhibits them to us under the shameful image of a woman lost to all sense of virtue; whose only view is to seduce and corrupt youth; who only sooths the passions and flatters the senses; who abhors modesty and every sentiment of honour; and who, banishing from her countenance every indication of shame, glories in her ignominy. We are not to infer from hence, that traffic is sinful in itself; but we should separate from the essential foundation of trade, which is just and lawful when rightly used, the passions of men which intermix with, and by that means pervert the order and end of it. Tyre, converted to Christianity, teaches merchants in what manner they are to carry on their traffic, and the uses to which they ought to apply their profits. SECT. VII. Darius writes a second letter to Alexander. Journey of the latter to Jerusalem. The honour which he pays to Jaddus the high-priest. He is shown those prophecies of Daniel which relate to himself. The king grants great privileges to the Jews, but refuses them to the Samaritans. He besieges and takes Gaza, enters Egypt, and subdues that country. He there lays the foundations of Alexandria, then goes into Libya, where he visits the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and causes himself to be declared the son of that god. His return into Egypt. Whilst Alexander was carrying on the siege of Tyre, he had received a second letter from Darius, who at last gave him the title of king. “He offered him 10,000 talents (about 1,500,0007.) as a ransom for the captive princesses, and his daughter Statira in marriage, with all the country he had conquered as far as the Euphrates. Darius hinted to him the inconstancy of fortune; and described, in the most pompous terms, the numberless troops who were still under his command. Could he (Alexander) think that it * Isa. xxiii. 18 Pt in Alex. p. 681. Quint. Curt. 1. iv. c. 5. Arrian. 1. ii p. 101. |